Paragon Asra Housing Limited (202200997)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202200997

Paragon Asra Housing Limited

11 May 2023

 

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice, or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman, and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about the conduct of a member of staff.
  2. The Ombudsman has also looked at the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord.
  2. The landlord has a legal injunction in place against the resident. The injunction references a named point of contact for the resident to communicate with within the landlord’s organisation.
  3. On 11 December and 14 December 2021, the resident submitted a complaint to the landlord. He stated that the complaint was about the behaviour of the landlord’s staff member and an allegation made against him that he was rude to the landlord’s contractor. The resident also stated that the staff member had behaved in an unacceptable and unreasonable manner. He also explained that he requested his assigned point of contact to be removed.
  4. On 29 December 2021, the landlord provided its stage one complaint response. It acknowledged that it had mistakenly identified the resident as the person who had been involved in an incident with its contractor. The landlord apologised for the mistake.
  5. On 29 December 2021, the resident emailed the landlord and stated he was unhappy with the landlord’s stage one complaint response.
  6. On 27 January 2022, the resident emailed the landlord and explained that no response or acknowledgement had been received regarding his formal complaint about the landlord’s staff member and his request for his point of contact to be changed.
  7. On 12 July 2022, the landlord provided its stage two complaint response. The landlord stated that it conducted an internal investigation in line with its procedures about the incident and incorrect information. It also provided feedback to the staff member who provided the incorrect information. The landlord also apologised for the delay in providing a response to the resident’s complaint and offered compensation of £50 for the delay.
  8. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and submitted his complaint to the Ombudsman. He stated that his desired outcome was for the landlord to respond to his complaint, and to investigate the staff behaviour issues and the request for his point of contact to be changed. He would also like compensation for the stress he experienced.
  9. The landlord has made an offer of compensation for £150 in its file submission sent to the Ombudsman. The landlord had not communicated this offer to the resident. In addition, the landlord has also raised an objection to the Ombudsman looking into the resident’s complaint point regarding its request to the landlord’s staff member for his point of contact to be change.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about a member of staff

  1. The landlord has raised a jurisdiction objection under paragraph 42c of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. Paragraph 42c of the scheme states the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which in the Ombudsman opinion were not brought to the attention of the member [landlord] as a formal complaint within a reasonable period, which would normally be within six months of the matters arising.
  2. The jurisdiction objection raised is in relation to the resident’s complaint request to the landlord’s staff member for his point of contact to be changed. The landlord has argued that this was not raised as a formal complaint within a reasonable period as at the time of the resident’s complaint, the staff member concerned had not contacted the resident for more than six months.
  3. The landlord’s solicitor acknowledged in a letter dated 17 November 2021, that the resident had requested his point of contact to be changed in an email dated 1 November 2021. Therefore, the resident brought the matter to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period. Regardless of whether the member of staff had contacted him recently, the resident was entitled to request for them to be removed as his point of contact and complain about the landlord’s refusal to remove them. After carefully considering all the evidence, this aspect of the complaint is within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to consider. The landlord’s response to the resident’s request to remove the point of contact is addressed further below in this assessment.
  4. The landlord’s complaints policy states that one of the objectives of its policy is to be clear, simple, accessible and to ensure complaints are resolved promptly and professionally. Furthermore, the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (The Code) sets out the Ombudsman’s expectations for landlords’ complaint handling practices. The Code states that landlords must address all points raised in the complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions.
  5. The resident submitted an email to the landlord with his formal complaint in December 2021. As part of the complaint, he stated that he requested his point of contact to be changed but the member of staff he asked refused. This aspect of the complaint was not addressed in the landlord’s stage one or stage two complaint response. The resident also emailed the landlord on the 27 January 2022 and 6 February 2022 and explained that the complaint about the point of contact had been ignored.
  6. The landlord did not address all the resident’s complaint points. Therefore, it failed to comply with The Code and its own complaints policy. The landlord has acknowledged in its file submission sent to the Ombudsman that it had made an error. It explained it should have addressed the complaint about the request for point of contact to be removed. The landlord has offered £150 compensation for the error.
  7. The Ombudsman acknowledges that the landlord not addressing the resident’s entire complaint would have caused a considerable amount of distress and inconvenience to the resident. However, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the compensation of £150 is reasonable and proportionately reflects the impact of the error on the resident. The amount of compensation awarded is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance (published on our website), which sets out the Ombudsman’s approach to compensation. The Remedies Guidance suggests awards of £100 to £600 where there has been a failure which adversely affected the resident but there was no permanent impact. In this case the landlord ultimately acknowledged its failure, meaning there was no permanent impact.
  8. The Ombudsman has reviewed the available information to address the complaint by the resident about the landlord’s refusal to change his point of contact. The landlord’s solicitor sent a letter dated 17 November 2021 to the resident. In this letter the solicitor, explained that the resident’s point of contact would remain in line with the terms of the injunction order. As an injunction is a court order, it is outside The Ombudsman’s remit to comment on or investigate the contents of the injunction. The injunction would have been granted by the court, which is a higher power than the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman does not have the authority to overturn the court’s decision. Therefore, the resident may want to seek independent legal advice if he is unhappy with the point of contact or any other aspects of the injunction.
  9. This Service recognises that the landlord eventually identified its error in not addressing the resident’s entire complaint and offered compensation in view of this. However, this was not identified until the resident’s complaint was submitted to the Ombudsman and there is no evidence that the landlord made the resident aware of this offer. An offer of compensation is not valid redress if the resident is not made aware of it and cannot choose whether to accept it. Therefore, there has been maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about a member of staff as it did not offer adequate redress to the resident for its errors.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it will provide a stage two complaint response within 15 working days, following a thorough investigation. It also states if the complaint investigation is complex, it may need longer than 15 days to resolve the complaint. However, in these instances, it will keep the resident regularly updated about the reasons for the delay.
  2. The Code states that a stage one response should be provided within ten working days of the complaint. It also explains that a stage two response should be provided within 20 working days from the request to escalate.
  3. On 29 December 2021, the resident stated that he was unhappy with the landlord’s stage one complaint. It then took over six months for the landlord to provide its stage two complaint response. The stage two complaint response was provided on 12 July 2022. The response was considerably late and not compliant with the timescales referred to in the landlord’s complaint policy and the complaint handling code.
  4. The landlord acknowledged in its stage two response that there was a delay in providing its response. As a resolution, it offered the resident £50 compensation.
  5. Given the considerable delay in the landlord providing its stage two response, there has been maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. It would be appropriate for the landlord to pay the resident further compensation of £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused. This amount is in addition to the £50 the landlord offered for complaint handling through its own complaints process. The amount of compensation is appropriate to recognise the significant delay the resident experienced. It is also compliant with the landlord’s compensation policy and the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about a member of staff.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. The landlord to pay the resident £150 compensation which was offered in its file submission for its handling of the resident’s complaint about a member of staff.
  2. The landlord to pay the resident a further £100 compensation for its complaint handling. This amount is in addition to the £50 already offered to the resident through the landlord’s complaints process.
  3. These payments should be made within four weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should carry out staff training to ensure that all complaint points are addressed in its stage one and two complaint responses.